Well, let's ask Police Chief Turley. According to him, the three ticket writers were not charged because "it appears that they had no criminal intent ... I felt termination was appropriate," Turley said.

Criminal intent. What does that mean? Does it mean these three parking officers didn't mean to write the tickets? They didn't mean to target their enemies?

It seems pretty clear that they did mean it. I mean after all, they wrote the tickets.

It also seems pretty clear that the City isn't telling us the whole story. According to the Albany Times Union, "City officials had initially refused to release any information about the scam. They turned over payroll records and an electronic list of all tickets written this year after the Times Union filed a Freedom of Information Law request. " But we still don't know why.

It took a FOIA request to even get basic information out of the City. What are they trying to hide?